The opening of the Repertory Theatre of Boston in its new Huntington Avenue play house on Tuesday evening was with out a shadow of doubt, an occasion.

It was so much of an occasion in fact that an excellent performance of "The Rivals" was cast into eclipse by the elaborate ceremony of dedication. There were times when the atmosphere became oppressively like that of high school graduation exercises. At the close of the first act J. Weston Allen of the Board of Trustees for the Jewell Repertory Fund, Inc., appeared before the curtain and described in a deep and sonorous monotone the achievements and aspirations of the Repertory Theatre. Then His Honor, the Governor, was introduced from one box, and His Honor, the Corporation Counsel of Boston, from the other, and the two eminent gentlemen rivalled each other in intoning pleasing and congratulatory nothings about the theater on behalf on the Commonwealth and of the City. And the graduation day picture was completed at the close of the second act, when Mr. Jewett in response to polite applause after his somewhat pompous speech, advanced to the footlights and proceeded to recite a great many lines of heroic verse after the "Roll-on-thou-deep-and-vast-blue-ocean-Roll" manner of the Elocution Class. Very luckily for the audience Mr. Francis Wilson bounced on to the stage a few moments later and in an absurdly serious speech, satirized the solemn bromides of the proceeding speakers so masterfully that the atmosphere was once again restored to sanity and good humor.

Another distraction on Tuesday evening was the theater itself, then opened for the first time to public inspection. The auditorium is well in keeping with the excellent Georgian exterior. With